Juggernaut Poker

if anyone still reads this I have started a new blog

Fade the River

Well we played the second annual LPT Omaha championship on this past Friday, and after talking shit all week how I was going to win I came up just short, when my AAjx (double suited) couldn’t fade a 7 for trip 7’s on the river. I was up against a very aggressive player who was really pushing the action and I was determined not to get run over so I got my money in, and just had to “one time” but couldn’t fade the river. Back to back tourneys I get my money in on the final hand and was outdrawn. Such is poker, I have another tourney coming up in less than two weeks to make up for it!

I haven’t yet gone two deep into Stox yet, but I plan to take full advantage of the site to improve my game. I am ready to get back to work as a student of the game and start rebuilding a roll, and taking my game up a level. With summer coming I won’t be playing too too frequently as I hope to get alot of hiking/exercise this summer but I am ready to start playing again.

Wow, big shout out to Amazon.ca for shipping my harrington books so quickly. Ordered them on 19th, today they are here! I paid 4 bucks i think for express shipping, worth every penny! I haven’t dived into them yet but I will ASAP.

I haven’t heard back from stox yet even tho i finished my quota a few days ago now, last i heard they were still waiting to here from lucky poker. I want to get onboard there and start using the resources to build my game. I have been playing alot of shorthanded with mixed results, and have been playing alot of heads up. Heads up is a favorite game of mine, and I play alot of it live and online, its something that I really want to improve.

Not a whole lot else poker wise new, got the Season 3 Omaha Tourney this Friday and looking forward to that. Well off to check out the harrington books.

Yesterday turned out to be a good poker day. I managed to go from a low of 73 on my Lucky Ace Poker roll (bought in for 75 on Tues) to up to 140, by hitting and running during 3short (less than 100 hands total) sessions. Always feel dirty doing the hit and run but I seem to be able to do it fairly successfully, and be able to build a roll when I do, so i will continue for now. I have been playing shorthanded, 4 people or less and having some success with it, so I will continue to mix shorthanded with full tables.

Also, I bought myself from amazon Harrington on Cash 1 and 2. Need to get rolling on the studying again, and I figured thats a good place to start. All in all pretty happy with how my poker day yesterday.

On a sad note, with my re-entering the poker world I found out via Wickedchopspoker that Brandi Hawbaker took her own life last weekend. Although I know nothing about her other than what I have read over the years on Two plus Two and various other forums, its still a sad story. While obviously very troubled, sad to see such a young person get to the point where thats their option.

So I signed up for a 888.com site called Lucky Ace poker in order to get a 6 month full membership to Stox Poker. The requirements were very easily cleared and I did it in a little more than 2.5 – 3 hours single table play. I played a mix of limit 50-1/ nl 25/50 and Omaha hi up to 50-1 plo (yes over my roll, its what I do).

I deposited 75, got an instant 19 and have been rollercoastering from a high of 120 to a low of 20. I currently sit at about 85. Played a heads up 25/50cents nl table against a guy this am that was absolutely nutty. I ended up going down 30 to him, after a crazy number of beats, but I knew if he just stayed at the table I would stack him, and sure enough I did when flopped an open ended straight flush draw, turned the straight, and it held against his rivered trips.

It was the first online poker I had played in a month and I am still suffering from Tilt issues. I think that this has been an issue from the first 1000 hands I ever played online and it continues to be my biggest obstacle standing in the way of me becoming a winning online player. I have heard that stox poker has a lot of poker psychology and I will be using every bit of it available to me. I know in my head I want the crazy calls I get, I KNOW it, but when they hit time after time against me, I revert to the old patterns and get away from playing good poker. Its been a constant struggle, but I am not throwing in the towel just yet. “I didn’t hear no bell”….to quote a favorite movie of mine.

So I am still playing on Lucky Ace for a bit. I am not playing much, keeping short sessions for now, which is easier for me as I am also playing WoW, as well as hopefully now that the nice weather is here actually going to go out and get some of that “fresh air” I have been hearing so much about. My plan is to study all I can from the resources on Stox, and slowly get back into the blogs/forums. I am going to try and keep what online sessions I do play short, and try and play more focused. Still working on all the same stuff have been working on forever. Not ready to give up on the game yet.

I have dropped off the face of the poker earth the past few months. I have not been playing online, and have one live game in 4 weeks time. For me, that is a ridiculously low volume. Has my interest in poker waned? Hard to say. Online poker and I have always had a curious relationship. I have been on hiatus for 4 weeks.

However, today I have returned. I deposited 75 dollars (and got an instant 19 bonus) on a new site LuckyAce Poker, which I joined for the sole purpose of getting a membership to stox poker. I have been looking to get a membership at one of the premier training sites for a while, and this seems like to good of an opportunity to pass up.

I have been using my online break to get into the game I used to inexhaustively make fun of, World of Warcraft. I actually am enjoying the game, and was enjoying my time off, but its time for me to step back online and get back to being a student of the game, and learning the game again from the ground up.

I have a few books on my shelves that I need to read for the first time, and a couple to reread. I need to get back to thinking about the game, studying the game, and most of all have fun playing the game. I hope I sat on the sidelines long enough to be refreshed, and hope that I don’t fall back into the old habits, of overplaying my roll and donking off chips out of tilt or bordem. We shall see.

The poker posts have been very sporadic of late in my personal poker blog. I am trying to get a few out at my team blog, but here at Juggernaut Poker, things have been very quiet. I have been struggling as I have mentioned for quite a while with my game, particularly online. For the past few weeks I have played live poker twice, and played very little online, and have been avoiding the blogs, forums and poker websites.

I think it stems from the fact that I can’t really participate in poker half way. I have stretches where I spend so much time on the game, whether playing, reading, watching or discussing I burn myself out. I am currently tapped out online and I don’t plan to rebuy anytime soon. I have not been enjoying the game online very much for a while now, and when I do play, I play more out of wanting some action than anything else. I don’t know if poker is slowly making an exit from my life, at least at the scale it was a part of my life, or if I am just on a down part of the journey.

I am determined to take a real break this time from the online portion of the game. I have taken some 4-6 week breaks periodically over the last few years, but have always gone back, sometimes when I was truly ready, sometimes a little early. This time, I want to take a real break. I am not going to put a time frame, because thats too hard to predict, when I will feel ready. But the early plan is for at least a 3 month break give or take. Give me time to rest, see how I feel, if I truly miss playing, or do I just like the action or whatever.

My live game is in pretty good shape right now. I am happy with the decisions I am making at the tables, and I like my reads and my patience right now. I play within my roll and I have fun. Online, I tilt, i chase, i play over what I should and i just generally gamble. While there is an element of gambling to Poker of course, played correctly I truly believe it is more of a skill game than a gambling game.

I write this blog mostly for me. I don’t think I have many readers out there outside of a couple of my poker playing buddies, so I am not really concerned about writing the same things over and over. I still have the same issues with my online game as I always have. I am aware of them, I am trying to plug those leaks, yet I am obviously struggling. I think a real break from the online game will help. i assuming I will be back to playing regularly online at some point, but it is not a certainty. Maybe its time to make poker just a once in a while fun game, rather than such a big part of my life. Dunno, still trying to find my place in poker I guess. It’s a great game, one that I am a lifer at, but I guess the question is, to what degree do I continue to pursue poker?

Time will tell.

I am in a bit of a poker downswing of late as I mentioned my last post in terms of my interest. Even me at my lowest interest is still not ignoring poker completely. I still watch on tv, read thru the blogs, and hit a forum or two, it just means every spare moment I have is not spent on poker related activities.

Besides writing on this blog I also write on a “team blog” located at nevertilt.com/teamnevertilt. The amount of activity ebs and flows on that site, and of late it is hopping again because one of the crew is on an upswing in his poker interest. This is a great thing, as normally when one of us is busy and interested on things poker related it drives the rest of us.

I have not done any poker book reading this week, but I have been reading Navarro’s Read em and Reap. I have alot of books on my shelf that I need to read, so I am trying to keep away from the bookstores so I don’t bring any more books home before reading what I have. I had been buying a lot of books of the FPP website on stars, but there wasn’t any I wanted for a while. Now there are two that I want, a limit book by Barry Tanenbaum and Kill Everyone by the guys that brought you Kill Phil (minus one colaborator). I think the next one I tackle will be How to win in Tough Holdem Games by Stox.

Well a month has passed since I last made any poker related post. I have played a little bit online, and also a little live but nothing out of the ordinary has come into play. I served out some bad beats, and I was on the recieving end of some as well. I am not playing very inspired poker right now, nor am I really passionate about the game right now. This is the main reason for no posts. I simply don’t want to fill up this blog with whiny bad beat stories.

I did manage to qualify for my first Sunday Millions a few weeks ago, and I narrowly missed playing in another just this past weekend, coming in 2nd out of 27 in a satelite. I totally physched myself out in my first Sunday million, and was totally overmatched as far as mindset. The early rounds was way more aggressive than I expected and I simply wasn’t ready for that and busted out after only 34 hands. I will definately try and get back to play more Sunday millions and I will be more mentally prepared when the time comes.

Cash game play online has been up and down. I truly beleive the limit play up to 3-6 on stars is attrocious and very beatable, providing you got the roll to handle the ups and downs. I play overrolled, cause frankly 50-1 or lowest doesn’t hold my interest nor do I play as I should. That is a huge fault of mine, and if I am ever going to get anyway I must play within the roll requirements. I think the cash games are where the money is to be made, but again, I don’t have the discipline to play the cash games correctly.

So where does that leave me? Well if I am going to play, I think the best bet for me is to play sng’s. I am probably if truth be told, a better sng/tourney player than I am a cash game player. I simply do not have the discipline online to play cash correct. Currently I just cashed out 90 percent of my roll on both Stars and Tilt in order to take care of some offline requirements. Other than a few of these 5 dollar PSO winter league tourney’s that I am playing I am not playing with any regularity online for the foreseeable future. I have to stop playing when I am not at my best. Tired/bored/upset does not make for good poker.

So that’s my update about poker in my world for the last month. I will try and write a little more, but I am on a mini hiatus until I make some decisions about what I am doing with poker. I am kinda jaded as of late with poker, as I feel I am not progressing as I should. For all the playing/writing/reading/discussing poker I do, I feel I should be further along in my poker skills. Maybe I don’t have the right mindframe for poker. I dunno, lots of questions I need to find answers for before going forward.

Well, things have grown quite quiet on the poker front for me. Another failed buy in online, and have not played live since the 14th. I will spare you the details of my recent online bustout, but lets just say it included the craziest (and one of the most costly) 17 minutes of my online career. I call it, “The 17 minutes of Infamy”…..lol

I have a live game tonight at one of the TNT’ers and I am looking forward to that. I have no idea if it is a cash game or a sng/tourney, I just know I am looking forward to having a few wobblies and throwing around some chips. Just looking to have some money and hopefully pad my meager live roll I started a couple sessions ago. If all works out I will use that and only that for poker, and build it a little at a time.

I started reading “Why you Lose at Poker” today, one of the books I got this fall from PokerStars. Being a “Goals guy” as my buddy Onemanblitz calls me, this time of year I have often set a huge list of goals for the New Year. Last year at this time I was riding high, coming off the biggest one night live haul of my poker career. This year I come into the New Year limping. I am not playing at my best, although I feel my game is coming around after a terrible, tough year. I have in fact made a list of goals, although it only has one item, and that is simply this:

“Get Better at Poker”

Nothing fancy to be sure. I plan to get back to studying. I plan to get back to thinking about the game, rather than bitching about my bad luck or bad beats. I will not let the game consume me as it has in recent years, but I will spend most of my poker related time to getting better, and at least in my case, for this coming year that will be done away from the table. I plan to play less in 2008 than I have in the past, but when I do play it will be focused play, rather than playing out of habit or compulsion. I plan to read all the books gathering dust on my shelf and I plan to work hard on my mindset and strategy, all of which can be done away from the table. To truly get better you need to play of course, which I will, but not as much in years past. I think by playing less, but playing more focused, and getting back to my roots of being a poker student I can have the best year yet of my poker life, as well as set myself on the right track to enjoying this game, the highs and the lows, going forward for the rest of my playing days.